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This calculator vs. a flat price per linear foot
Gutter companies are told to bid by the linear foot. That rule cannot see the house — stories, pitch, guards, and debris change the minutes per foot, and two houses of identical footage can differ by nearly five times in labor.
What a flat price per linear foot is
A price per linear foot is the fastest number to quote over the phone: pace off the trough, multiply by a rate, read back a total. It is also the unit customers already compare between competing postcards.
The rate behind it was learned from a specific house — a given story count, roof pitch, guard type, and debris load — and then reused for the next footage that calls in, whether or not that next house shares any of those.
What this calculator is
This page keeps no account and sends nothing to a server. You enter each gutter run's linear feet, story, roof pitch, guard type, debris load, and downspout count, plus your own wage, payroll burden, minutes per 10 feet, minutes per downspout, travel time, disposal, equipment, overhead, and target margin. It multiplies each run's minutes by its own story, pitch, guard, and debris factors, adds downspout flush time, and returns the visit price, the price per linear foot, the effective hourly rate, and an optional spring-and-fall contract total — for this house, not a rate carried over from the last one.
| What a flat per-foot rate does | What this calculator does instead |
|---|---|
| Charges the same rate for a one-story ranch and a two-story house with the identical footage, even though a second story is extra ladder moves and reach time on every run. | Multiplies each run's minutes by a story factor — 1, 1.5, 2, or 3 stories — so a taller house costs more without anyone eyeballing a surcharge. |
| Has no line for gutter guards — open troughs and micro-mesh get the same rate, even though mesh turns a scoop into a pick. | Prices open, screen, and micro-mesh guards as their own multiplier on top of the base minutes per foot. |
| Has no line for debris type or roof pitch — light leaves and packed pine needles on a steep roof get the same rate. | Prices pitch and debris as their own multipliers, so a steep roof under conifers costs more than a walkable roof with light leaves. |
| Bills downspouts inside the same blended per-foot number, if at all. | Prices each downspout's flush-and-test time separately, still scaled by story but not by pitch or guards — a second-story leader takes longer to reach, but a downspout is not harder to flush because the trough has mesh. |
| Gives the crew a number to quote, not a number to check a quote against. | Reports the price per linear foot and the effective hourly rate alongside the price, so a shopped rate can be scored against real cost before you match it. |
Same 150 feet, two different houses
Using this calculator's own shipped cost inputs — $22 blended wage, 30% burden, 8 minutes per 10 linear feet, 8 minutes per downspout, 20 minutes travel and setup, $15 disposal, $10 equipment, 15% overhead, 25% target margin, $125 minimum stop charge:
A 150-foot, one-story house with open gutters and light leaf debris (5 downspouts) takes 3.0 hours and prices at $169.89 for the visit — $1.13 per linear foot.
Pour the identical 150 feet onto a two-story house instead — moderate roof pitch, micro-mesh guards, pine-needle debris, the same 5 downspouts — and it takes 14.4 hours, costs $500.84 to run before a dollar of profit, and this calculator prices it at $667.79 — $4.45 per linear foot. Quoting the two-story house at the ranch's learned rate of $1.13 per linear foot reproduces the ranch's price, $169.89, which is $330.95 below the two-story house's own break-even cost — before counting the $497.89 it falls short of this calculator's own price at a 25% target margin. On a spring-and-fall contract, that gap doubles to $995.79 a year. Same 150 feet, same rate, one house that pays and one that loses money the moment the ladder goes up.
Common questions
Why does a flat price per linear foot get a gutter-cleaning bid wrong?
Because linear feet only measure the length of the run, not what it takes to clean it. A 150-foot, one-story house with open gutters and light leaf debris takes about 3.0 hours. The identical 150 feet on a two-story house with a moderate roof pitch, micro-mesh guards, and pine-needle debris takes about 14.4 hours -- almost five times the labor on the same footage, because story, pitch, guards, and debris each multiply the minutes per foot.
What does a flat per-foot rate usually miss entirely?
Story, pitch, guards, and debris, and the downspouts. A flat rate has no line for a second story slowing down every reach, no line for a steep or moderate pitch making the trough harder to work, no line for micro-mesh turning a scoop into a pick, and no line for pine needles taking longer to clear than loose leaves. It also has no separate line for downspout flushes, which still take longer on a second story even though the trough work is billed by the foot.
How big is the pricing gap in practice?
Using this calculator's own shipped cost inputs: a 150-foot, one-story house with open gutters and leaves prices at $169.89 for the visit -- $1.13 per linear foot, on 3.0 hours of work. The identical 150 feet on a two-story house with micro-mesh guards and needle debris takes 14.4 hours, costs $500.84 to run before a dollar of profit, and this calculator prices it at $667.79 -- $4.45 per linear foot. Quoting the harder house at the easier house's learned rate of $1.13 per linear foot reproduces the easier price, $169.89, which is $330.95 below the harder house's own break-even cost -- before counting the $497.89 it falls short of this calculator's price at a 25% target margin. On a spring-and-fall contract, that gap doubles to $995.79 a year.
Is a flat price per linear foot ever a reasonable shorthand?
For a narrow band of similar houses -- one story, open gutters, light leaf debris -- a per-foot number can land close, because that is probably the house the rate was set on. The risk is quoting a two-story house, one with gutter guards, or one under pine or fir trees the same way sight unseen, because the rate does not know the story, the pitch, the guards, or the debris until someone is on the ladder, and by then the per-foot number has often already been quoted.
Does this calculator know my local labor rates or disposal costs?
No. It has no data on your local labor market or your dump fees. It takes each gutter run's linear feet, story, pitch, guard type, debris, and downspout count, and your own wage, payroll burden, disposal, equipment, overhead, and target margin, and turns that into crew hours and a price for this visit -- the arithmetic a flat per-foot rate skips, not a market survey.
Open the Gutter Cleaning Bid Calculator to price your own visit, or read why a two-story house costs more to clean.